Carthaginian War Elephants

Watch out! Here come the Elephants.

 

Actually these elephants are quite small compared to the elephants we know from today. That is because they are of a species now thought to be extinct (or maybe near extinct). The North African Forest Elephant. We know that the Carthaginians used these Elephants in battle, the way that can be seen above. They were used to crash through the enemy infantry, and scare the enemy horses, who did not like their alien smell.

First I will show a two pictures of the units with the red howdah. Here they are.

These figures are pretty much like they come out of the box, from HaT. With one exception. I made a headswap for the spearman in the central elephant. He is the unit leader, or at least that is how I like to think of him. The Elephants I know are painted a little too simply, being one color, and with no hightlights, but it will do, I think.

Then there is the unit with the white howdah. 

Again these are pretty much as they come in the set, but, the central elephant has a figure from the Atlantic Gladiator set, with a headswap. I like how he fits, and I consider him the Leader of all my elephants. 

I hope you liked my elephants. Sooner or later I will assemble and paint up the Zvezda War Elephants too, and introduce those to you as well.

~Claus

Imagi-nation Greeks

Some years ago I painted up some Greeks. I decided that I would make four main Greek armies. Those would be the Thebans, Athenians, Spartans and Macedonians. Of course I also wanted there to be minor greek ally contingents, that each of these mighty armies could call apon, and thus I invented some Imagi-Nation city states, that had uniforms i just picked out for fun.

Here is a light equiped hoplite unit, that I imagine comes from the Greek settlements in Egypt..

That they are from Egypt is not very visible on the above photo, but it is quite a bit more visible in the shield designs that the figures from HaT have. These are visible in the photos below where I have taken a picture of each pose.

Of course lighter troops were also available to the Greeks, and I made a shieldless light psiloi unit. Also an imagination unit.

Here are the poses from the unit, in profile. I have omitted the central figure, more on that later. (I think I might have omitted a figure from the rank and file too, but no worries. If you can pick out which one, you get a brownie point).

Also I made a 2nd unit of light psiloi. These are equiped with a shield. The thracian shield I made a very primitive design on. Just a triangle and two straight lines dividing up the shield into three areas.

The figures making up the unit, are basically the same as the other light unit of psiloi, but here they are any way in close-up.

Now to the more special figures of these light units. It is a conversion in each case. The basic figure is one of the atlantic civilian greeks, with a short walking staff. Since I in general do not like civilian figures, I decided to convert them, with a simple headswap. Here are the results.

And from the back:

The heads from the civilians I put in my spares box, and later reused on other hoplites. It is easy to explain a helmetless man. The left figure shows some wear and tear, and i might repaint him before using him in battle. I like how these conversions turned out.

~Claus

Punic War Libyans

I generally buy everything that is of reasonable quality, and fits my definition of ancients (anything before gunpowder), and the Carthaginian Allies, by HaT fit into this category. So with the purchase of this set i got my first Punic War Libyans (along with a number of other figures). Later when i purchased Zvezdas Carthaginian Infantry i got a few more. 

These form the back bone of my Punic War Libyan ally contingent. I would hesitate to call it an army, since I think it is too small. Here is the entire "tribe" lined up and ready for battle. 

As can be seen it consists of 4 seperate units. Three more or less identical units, of spearmen (from the HaT set) with various shield patterns, and of course a "mohawk" which was dyed red. All accurate according to my sources.

Then there is a unit of Libyan spearmen as they look when made by Zvezda. They have somewhat cruder shields, but they have an iron rim. Also they are very clearly wooden, so it would be hard to mix these figures with the ones from HaT, that seem to have hide over there shields.

And then.... we have the command element. I like to group these with the Zvezda Libyans, to make a bigger unit. There are after all only 6 Libyans from the 2 boxes of Zvezda Carthaginian Infantry I picked up. Here we have them.

Only 2 of them are ordinary figures, that can be bought of the shelf, both from the HaT set. Two of the others are simple head swaps. (Can you recognize what set they come from?) And the last two, the Tribal Leader and his standard bearer are alittle more complex conversions. Have a closer look:

Standard bearer:

Tribal Leader:

Generally i like the work i did on these Libyans. However one thing bugs me. Are they supposed to have black skin? Or should they have been more like the rest of the Carthaginians? If you know the answer, feel free to tell me. Don´t think I will repaint the figures, as I like the look of black skin and red hair. But I am curious to what the answer might be.

~Claus

Carthaginian Cavalry, Conversions

So I promised a few pictures of some of my figures. Well I thought I would start off with something that old, and something that really was not made by any one figure company.

So back in 2000 something, I sat down, and did some simple headswaps. These were my first conversions, ever. I took the heads of some of HaTs Carthaginian African Infantry, and gave them the bodies of some of HaTs Republican Roman Cavalry. It felt like a good idea at the time. Carthaginians often took the armor and equipment from the battlefield, so why not cavalrymen too.

The result looks like this:

and from another angle, and a little more in focus:

Back then I was not as skilled as I am now. First of all I would have adjusted the heads, so that the guy at the back to the left, did not look like a casualty. But other than that, I am pretty pleased with the result. The pictures were published on HaTs website.

Some time later, HaT made a set with Carthaginian Cavalry, making this a project that i had not needed to do. But that´s life for you...

~Claus